Nature of the Indian Forays.

Clark, from his post at the Falls, sent out spies and scouts along the banks of the river, and patrolled its waters with his gun-boat; but it was absolutely impossible to stop all the forays or to tell the point likely to be next struck.  A war party starting from the wigwam-towns would move silently down through the woods, cross the Ohio at any point, and stealthily and rapidly traverse the settlements, its presence undiscovered until the deeds of murder and rapine were done, and its track marked by charred cabins and the ghastly, mutilated bodies of men, women, and children.

If themselves assailed, the warriors fought desperately and effectively.  They sometimes attacked bodies of troops, but always by ambush or surprise; and they much preferred to pounce on unprepared and unsuspecting surveyors, farmers, or wayfarers, or to creep up to solitary, outlying cabins.  They valued the scalps of women and children as highly as those of men.  Striking a sudden blow, where there was hardly any possibility of loss to themselves, they instantly moved on to the next settlement, repeating the process again and again.  Tireless, watchful, cautious, and rapid, they covered great distances, and their stealth and the mystery of their coming and going added to the terror produced by the horrible nature of their ravages.  When pursued they dextrously covered their trail, and started homewards across a hundred leagues of trackless wilderness.  The pursuers almost of necessity went slower, for they had to puzzle out the tracks; and after a certain number of days either their food gave out or they found themselves too far from home, and were obliged to return.  In most instances the pursuit was vain.  Thus a party of twenty savages might make a war-trail some hundreds of miles in length, taking forty or fifty scalps, carrying off a dozen women and children, and throwing a number of settlements, with perhaps a total population of a thousand souls, into a rage of terror and fury, with a loss to themselves of but one or two men killed and wounded.

    A Great War Band Threatens Kentucky

Throughout the summer of 1781 the settlers were scourged by an unbroken series of raids of this kind.  In August McKee, Brant, and other tory and Indian leaders assembled on the Miami an army of perhaps a thousand warriors.  They were collected to oppose Clark’s intended march to Detroit; for the British leaders were well aware of Clark’s intention, and trusted to the savages to frustrate it if he attempted to put it into execution.  Brant went off for a scout with a hundred warriors, and destroyed Loughry’s party of Westmoreland men, as already related, returning to the main body after having done so.  The fickle savages were much elated by this stroke, but instead of being inspired to greater efforts, took the view that the danger of invasion was now over.  After much persuasion Brant, McKee, and the captain of the